Where did all the Republican votes go in Bridgeport, Connecticut? Either over half of the traditional Republican voters in gubernatorial elections were no-shows on November 2 or the Constitution State's most populous city...lost its constitution.

Bridgeport is certainly not the sort of idyllic Norman Rockwell town found throughout most of Connecticut. It has long endured political corruption and patronage, high rates of poverty and crime, a shrinking economy, a declining population, and more recently, an infestation of radical progressive groups such as ACORN, AFL-CIO, WFP, and SEIU. Bridgeport did not earn the nickname "Chicago of the East" for nothing.

Despite its proximity to some of the wealthiest communities in the country, this small coastline city and former manufacturing center has not shared in its neighbors' spectacular growth and prosperity. This undoubtedly is due in part to the influx of social justice organizations, which seem to spread poverty, slums, and welfare dependency wherever they set up shop. Detroit is a textbook example of the desperate plight these community agitators cause when they gain political power and rip to shreds the industrial and economic base of the community.

Since 1928, Democrat gubernatorial candidates in Connecticut received the majority of votes in all but four general elections. It is interesting to note that a Socialist Party candidate received more votes than either the Democrat or Republican in 1938, and a Socialist held the mayor's office for 24 years until 1957, when he lost the election as "a consequence" of his "conservatism." With this voting record, it should come as no surprise that the Democrat won a majority in this election.

However, the off-the-cliff drop in the number of votes cast for the Republican candidate this election when compared to previous elections is puzzling. Just 4,099 votes were cast for the Republican, which is by far the lowest number all the way back to 1922. Furthermore, it is a 32% plunge from the previous low of 6,094 votes in 2002 and an astounding 51% drop from the 8,366 votes in the last gubernatorial election in 2006.

When compared with the ten previous elections, the results of this one reveal an even greater deviation. Republican gubernatorial candidates averaged 11,449 votes, so that means that in this election, there was a jaw-dropping difference of 64% from the ten-year average.

Meanwhile, the Democrat candidate benefited from a 59.5% jump in votes from the last election and a 6% increase above the ten-year average.

Of course, it is quite possible that Bridgeport's conservative voters are leaving the city in droves and being replaced by more liberal constituents. Nonetheless, these are dramatic changes for such a short period.

Also, it is important to acknowledge there has been a perceptible shift to the left in Connecticut over the last decade, and registered Democrats now outnumber Republicans nearly two to one. The Democrat party controls both houses of the Connecticut General Assembly with overwhelming majorities. Democrats also hold all five U.S. congressional districts and both U.S. Senate seats.

This is truly a deep-blue liberal state, and it is has the enormous budget deficit and sanctuary cities to prove it. Connecticut has the "highest tax-supported debt" of any state in the nation and suffered the embarrassment of having its bond rating lowered earlier this year.

This gubernatorial election alone represents a 15-point swing from Republican to Democrat in just four years. Furthermore, the total of statewide votes was the lowest for a Republican since 1994 and the highest for a Democrat since 1986. Clearly, the trend to the left is showing no signs of slowing -- and it may actually be accelerating.

It was not that the Republican candidate, Tom Foley, was unpopular. Foley led in the polls for several weeks before the election, and fewer than 7,000 of the over 1.1 million votes decided the outcome.

Notably, Foley won in 76% of the 169 towns in Connecticut. Of course, most of these were traditionally conservative rural farming towns, complete with small populations and vote tallies which were easily overcome by the ultra-liberal constituencies in the cities.

So something else must account for the historic results in Bridgeport that were not duplicated elsewhere in Connecticut.

Perhaps the bizarre string of events in Bridgeport during and after the election was a contributing factor.

From the beginning, it was obvious that Bridgeport officials did not order enough ballots. Just 21,000 ballots for 69,000 registered voters were available at polling sites in an election expected to draw unusually high voter turnout, especially since President Obama and Bill Clinton campaigned in Bridgeport just days earlier to rally the base in support of Jim Himes and Richard Blumenthal. Ballot shortages caused some polling places to run out of ballots more than once, and an undetermined number of citizens left without voting because of the extensive delays and long lines.

Poll workers resorted to photocopying ballots, which is a violation of state election procedures. Despite assurances by the Secretary of State that photocopied ballots would be segregated and counted publicly, the integrity of the vote count was unquestionably compromised.

A poll watcher was escorted by police from the polling area when he strongly objected to the mixing of official ballots with unofficial photocopied ballots. In the linked video, you can see the poll worker ignore the complaints of the poll watcher and continue stacking and mixing ballots.

The Mayor of Bridgeport observed several anomalies -- among them the accidental receipt by some voters of more than one ballot, overflowing bins of completed ballots, and unsupervised and untied ballots bags.

In response to the mayor's request, a judge ordered polling places to remain open an additional two hours to allow voters who had left to return and vote. This was possibly the first time in Connecticut that such a thing has happened.

City officials used the emergency 911 reverse calling system to alert residents that polling sites would remain open. No details were provided as to who was called.

The Secretary of State declared Democrat Dan Malloy the "unofficial" winner the day after the election even though the Secretary's office was still reporting that Malloy was trailing by 8,000 votes -- and the Bridgeport votes had not been counted.

On Thursday, two days after the election, a "surprise" bag of uncounted ballots was found by "Democrat operatives." GOP officials asked the police to take custody of the bag.

On Monday, November 8, Foley conceded.

One quote seems to aptly apply:

"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens."

CT voters were waiting in line to vote on 11/2, we could not wait and I guarantee the motivation was with the “take our government back” message not keep spending and kill us. No way, even in Bridgeport, that Republicans were a no show, it’s just not possible!

The Connecticut Post has been a primary apologist for all that reeks in Bridgeport. The way they’ve presented the election mess as ‘reporting’ was part of the script we’re all supposed to be playing along with for the priviledge of living nearby (safely, so far) the rats nest. USA out of Bridgeport now.

Sarcasm, or not, someone should take it upon themselves to make a serious inquiry by going directly to the official Republican voters list and contacting each and every individual on it to see if they voted. Methinks that waiting for the party to take on that responsibility would be like waiting for Obama to release any of his personal records.

The author, Raymond, is doing a superficial job on reviewing the results. All previous GOV elections in CT since the close one in ‘94 have been GOP landslides for an incumbent.

Foley got the base GOP vote which other non-GOV non-incumbent candidates have been getting. It is likely that there was fraud in the numbers, but we don’t know that from looking at the results. The Bridgeport numbers at least “look plausible.” In ‘06, the 2 GOP state Senate candidates received 4700 votes. And one of them was a Bridgeport resident and incumbent (Russo).

A thorough audit of results in New Haven, Hartford, Meriden, Bprt would be called for. But if the extra 5000 votes are fake, they were spread around the state, not concentrated in Bprt.

Changing demographics due to immigration. Using Bureau of the Census information, in 2008, the foreign born population of the city was 26.8%. Hispanics of all races make up 33.3% of the population and blacks 34.1%. Whites are 49.4%.

In 2000, the foreign born population of the city was 20.5%. Hispanics of all races made up 31.9% of the population and blacks 30.8%. Whites were 45%.

“This undoubtedly is due in part to the influx of social justice organizations, which seem to spread poverty, slums, and welfare dependency wherever they set up shop. Detroit is a textbook example of the desperate plight these community agitators cause when they gain political power and rip to shreds the industrial and economic base of the community.”

This sums up the Obama Administration, and what it is doing to America, better than anything I have ever seen.

Hmmm..Three weeks left before I plunge into the CT in-laws "den-of-vipers" for the annual Christmas party...

Struggling to figure out how to top last year's instigated (by me) confrontations. So far all I've come up with is the 15 posters I've printed of "Driving Miss Sara" to put up all around the banquet room...

19
posted on 11/15/2010 2:43:23 PM PST
by SuperLuminal
(Where is another agitator for republicanism like Sam Adams when we need him?)

Published: 11:14 a.m., Tuesday, November 16, 2010 HARTFORD -- Bridgeport officials, citing a lack of authority for Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, have rejected a request to recount ballots in the 12 city voting precincts that were kept open an extra two hours on Election Day.

Bysiewicz's office said Arthur C. Laske III, deputy city attorney, called Monday afternoon to announce that the city would not be redoing the count that they originally performed in the days after the Nov. 2 election.

Laske's call occurred hours after a Bysiewicz news conference announcing that Bridgeport's voting registrars agreed to perform an additional review of the ballots as part of a routine statewide recount of totals in 74 polling precincts.

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